The Twilight Zone
A popular TV series that introduced many Americans to serious science fiction ideas while still managing to attract overwhelmingly positive critical attention, in part due to its underlying social commentary, which subtly critiqued war and Cold War ideologies, bigotry, paranoia and xenophobia. In its original run from 1959-1964, Rod Serling (WP), as well as creating and writing for the series, provided narration as well as on camera introductions to many episodes. Rod Serling would later underscore his commitment to saving the planet, not only from war nuclear obliteration but pollution and extinction, by narrating a Jacques Cousteau documentary series. Twilight Zone’s writers frequently used science-fiction as a method for dealing with social commentary through metaphor; networks and sponsors who had infamously censored all potentially "inflammatory” material from the then predominant Golden Age of Television (WP) live drama programs were ignorant of the methods developed by science-fiction writers such as Ray Bradbury (WP) for dealing with important issues through seemingly innocuous fantasy. Frequent themes include nuclear war, mass hysteria and McCarthyism (WP), subjects that were strictly verboten on more "serious" prime-time drama. Episodes such as The Shelter or The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street offered specific commentary on current events while other stories operated around a central allegory, parable, or fable that reflected the characters' moral or philosophical choices, such as in The Masks or The Howling Man). Interest in the show inspired Wikipedia:Steven Spielberg (who would years later direct a segment of the pilot film to Serling's next series Wikipedia:Night Gallery, a show that features one of Spielberg's first directing debuts) to create a Wikipedia:1983 theatrical movie version, Wikipedia:Twilight Zone: The Movie. The film remade three classic episodes and included one original story. The making of the movie had its tragic consequences. During the filming of a segment directed by John Landis, actor Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le (aged 7) and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (aged 6) died in an accident involving a helicopter, which led to legal action against the filmmakers that lasted nearly a decade, and changes to regulations involving children working on movie sets at night and during special effects-heavy scenes. As a result of the tragedy, one second assistant director had his name removed from the credits and replaced with the pseudonymous Alan Smithee, and the film became a box-office failure. Despite that, the movie led to a revival that ran on CBS from 1985 to 1988. After its cancellation, new episodes continued to be produced in syndication for several more years. Reruns of the 1985 version were formerly shown on the cable television channel Turner Network Television (TNT) as filler, especially during rain delays or after early conclusions of baseball or basketball games. In 1985, CBS aired a revival series that attracted such talent as writers (WP) and and directors [[Wikipedia:Wes Craven|Wes Craven] and William Friedkin. Actors who had grown up watching the original series flocked to be a part of the Twilight Zone and casts consisted of such stars as Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Martin Landau, Johnathan Frakes and Fred Savage. Filling in for Serling as narrator and host was Charles Aidman, himself the star of two classic Twilight Zone episodes. New theme music was composed by Jerry Garcia (WP) and performed by The Grateful Dead (WP). Despite this star attention the new Twilight Zone rarely faired well in ratings or reviews and the show was cancelled after only two seasons on CBS. A third and final season was produced for syndication-only. In 2002 a second revival was attempted by UPN, with narration provided by Forest Whitaker. It was cancelled after only one season. The Time Element (1958) :Watch for the reaction of the main character to the disagreements between his point of view and those of the inhabitants of the 1941 timeline. His abrupt escalation of the situation to violence is not bad writing; this is the legacy of World War II wrought with Post-traumatic stress disorder (WP) upon an entire generation around the world (whether the largely male victims or their victims or their enablers), and writ large for all to see. It is not inconceivable that the (WP) anti-war movement, among other movements, was filled with the sons and daughters of fathers such as these, who not only ruled the roost but ruled it with damaged psyches. In 1957, CBS purchased a teleplay that writer Rod Serling hoped to produce as the pilot of a weekly anthology series. The Twilight Zone: The Time Element marked Serling’s first entry in the field of science-fiction. A time travel fantasy of sorts, the script told the story of a man visiting a therapist with complaints of a recurring dream in which he imagines waking up in Honolulu just prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. “I wake up in a hotel room in Honolulu and it's 1941, but I mean I really wake up and it's really 1941,” he tells his therapist, having concluded that these are not mere dreams; he is actually travelling through time. Taking advantage of the situation he bets on all the winning horses, all the right teams and, eventually, tries unsuccessfully to warn others –anyone: the newspaper, the military, anyone- that the Japanese are planning a surprise attack. To this imaginative script Serling added a whopper of an ending: after an exhaustive session the patient falls asleep on the therapist's couch. While asleep the patient simply vanishes before the therapist’s eyes. The therapist is distraught but eventually convinces himself it was all a mere delusion. Grabbing a drink at the local pub he notices a picture of his patient hanging behind the bar. The bartender explains that the man pictured was killed at Pearl Harbor, a device that would later be used in The Shining. Much of the series that was still to come was present in the formula of this episode with its science-fiction/fantasy theme, use of opening and closing narration and trick ending. But what would prove popular with audiences and critics in 1959 did not meet network standards in 1957. “The Time Element” was purchased only to be shelved indefinately, talks of making The Twilight Zone a series had ended. All of which changed when Bert Granet, the new producer for Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse discovered “The Time Element” script in CBS’ vaults while searching for an original Serling script to add prestige to his show. “The Time Element” debuted on Wikipedia:November 24, 1958 to an overwhelmingly delighted audience of television viewers and critics alike. “The humor and sincerity of Mr. Serling's dialogue made 'The Time Element' consistently entertaining,” offered Wikipedia:Jack Gould of the The New York Times as over six thousand letters of praise flooded Granet’s offices. Given the overwhelming reception of “The Time Element”, CBS again began talks with Serling about the possibilities of producing The Twilight Zone. Where Is Everybody? was accepted as the pilot episode, and the project was officially announced to the public in early 1959. Original series (1959-1964) frame|[[Wikipedia:Rod Serling hosting The Twilight Zone]] Throughout the Wikipedia:1950s, Wikipedia:Rod Serling had established himself as one of the hottest names in television, equally famous for his success in writing televised drama as he was for criticizing the medium's limitations. His most vocal complaints concerned the censorship frequently practiced by sponsors and networks. "I was not permitted to have my Senators discuss any current or pressing problem," he said of his Wikipedia:1957 production "The Arena", intended to be an involving look into contemporary politics. "To talk of tariff was to align oneself with the Republicans; to talk of labor was to suggest control by the Democrats. To say a single thing germane to the current political scene was absolutely prohibited... In retrospect, I probably would have had a much more adult play had I made it science fiction, put it in the year Wikipedia:2057, and peopled the Senate with robots. That would probably have been more reasonable and no less dramatically incisive." It was for this reason that in Wikipedia:1959 he would create a weekly television series that, while featuring stories peopled by robots, aliens and other fantastical beings would seek to offer dramatically incisive and involving looks into contemporary politics. Twilight Zone’s writers frequently used science-fiction as a metaphor for social comment; networks and sponsors who had infamously censored all potentially "inflammatory” material from the then predominant live dramas were ignorant of the methods developed by science-fiction writers such as Wikipedia:Ray Bradbury for dealing with important issues through seemingly innocuous fantasy. Frequent themes include nuclear war, mass hysteria and Wikipedia:McCarthyism, subjects that were strictly verboten on more "serious" prime-time drama. Episodes such as The Shelter or Wikipedia:The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street offered specific commentary on current events while other stories (such as The Masks or Wikipedia:The Howling Man) operated around a central Wikipedia:allegory, Wikipedia:parable, or Wikipedia:fable that reflected the characters' moral or philosophical choices. Despite his esteem in the writing community, Serling found The Twilight Zone a hard sell. Few critics at the time felt that science-fiction could transcend empty escapism and enter the realm of adult drama. In a Wikipedia:September 22, Wikipedia:1959 interview with Serling, Wikipedia:Mike Wallace asked a question illustrative of the mindset of the time: "..You're going to be, obviously, working so hard on The Twilight Zone that, in essence, for the time being and for the foreseeable future, you've given up on writing anything important for television, right?" Serling himself would later admit that to go "from writing an occassional drama for Wikipedia:Playhouse 90, a distinguished and certainly important series to creating and writing a weekly, thirty-minute television film was like Wikipedia:Stan Musial leaving St. Louis to coach third base in an American Legion little league." But The Twilight Zone was destined to break down this barrier, to become a commercial and critical success and to convince the critics that science fiction was a valid dramatic genre. The First Season (1959-1960) The Twilight Zone premiered the night of Wikipedia:October 2, Wikipedia:1959 to nearly unanimous rave reviews. "...Twilight Zone is about the only show on the air that I actually look forward to seeing. It's the one series that I will let interfere with other plans," said Terry Turner for the Wikipedia:Chicago Daily News. Others concurred, the Wikipedia:Daily Variety ranking it "with the best that has ever been accomplished in half-hour filmed television," the Wikipedia:New York Herald Tribune finding it as "certaintly the best and most original anthology series of the year." And if nothing else, The Twilight Zone sought to earn the title of "original", to seperate itself from the types of shows that predominated television in the late fifties. Said Wikipedia:Newton Minow in his celebrated "Wikipedia:Wasteland Speech": "Of 73 and a half hours of prime evening time, the networks have tentatively scheduled 59 hours to categories of action-adventure, situation comedy, variety, quiz, and movies." Minow's speech singled out The Twilight Zone as one of the few exceptions to the network rule. Even as the show proved popular to television's critics it struggled to find a receptive audience of television viewers. CBS was banking on a rating of at least 21 or 22, but its initial numbers were much worse. The series' future was jeopardized when its third episode, Wikipedia:Mr. Denton on Doomsday earned an abysmal 16.3 rating. The show would eventually attract a large enough audience to survive a brief hiatus in Wikipedia:November, during which the show finally surpassed its competition on both Wikipedia:ABC and Wikipedia:NBC and convinced its sponsors (General Foods and the Wikipedia:Kimberly-Clark Corporation) to stay on until the end of the season. With one exception (The Chaser), the first season would feature only scripts written by Wikipedia:Rod Serling, Wikipedia:Charles Beaumont and Wikipedia:Richard Matheson, a team that would eventually be responsible for 127 of the show's 156 episodes. Many of the episodes produced this season would prove the series' most famous and celebrated, including Wikipedia:Time Enough at Last, Wikipedia:Walking Distance and Wikipedia:The After Hours. The first season would win Serling his unprecedented fourth Emmy for dramatic writing, a Producers Guild Award for Serling's creative partner Wikipedia:Buck Hougton and the Wikipedia:Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation. The Second Season (1960-1961) The second season premiered on Wikipedia:September 30, Wikipedia:1960 with Wikipedia:King Nine Will Not Return, Serling's fresh take on the pilot episode Wikipedia:Where Is Everybody?. The familiarity of this first story stood in stark contrast to the novelty of the show's new packaging: Wikipedia:Bernard Herrman's original theme had been replaced by Wikipedia:Marius Contant's now legendary guitar-and-bongo riff, the Daliesque landscapes of the original opening were replaced by even more surreal introduction inspired by the new images in Serling's narration ("That's the signpost up ahead"), and Serling himself stepped in front of the cameras for the first time to offer his opening narration surrounded by the very scenery he was describing. New also were several behind-the-scenes elements that affected the way in which the show was produced: a new sponsor, Wikipedia:Colgate-Palmolive, replaced last year's Wikipedia:Kimberly-Clark Corporation and a new network executive, James Aubrey took over CBS. "Jim Aubrey was a very, very difficult problem for the show," said associate producer Wikipedia:Del Reisman. "He was particularly tough on The Twilight Zone because for its time it was a particularly costly half hour show.... Aubrey was real tough on show's budget even if it was a small number of dollars." In a push to keep Twilight Zone's expenses down, Aubrey ordered that seven fewer episodes be produced than last season... and that six of those being produced would be shot on videotape rather than film. At the time videotape technology was very limiting: all shots had to be taken on a soundstage, none of the videotaped episodes could be produced on-location. Editing was also limited in much the way that live-TV was, requiring the director to cut between cameras in one continuous take. Despite these concerns the second season saw the production of many of the series' most celebrated episodes, including Wikipedia:The Eye of the Beholder and The Invaders. The traditional trio of Serling, Matheson and Beaumont began to open up to new writers, and this season saw the television debut of Wikipedia:George Clayton Johnson. This season would also see Serling win his fifth Emmy for dramatic writing, an additional Emmy awarded to director of photography Wikipedia:George T. Clemens and earn, for the second year in a row, the Wikipedia:Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation. Other awards include the Unity Award for "Outstanding Contributions to Better Race Relations" and an Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Drama". The Third Season (1961-1962) frame|[[Wikipedia:Susan Cummings and Wikipedia:Richard Kiel in To Serve Man]] In his third year as executive producer, host, narrator and primary writer for The Twilight Zone, Serling was beginning to feel exhausted. "I've never felt quite so drained of ideas as I do at this moment," said the 37-year old playwright at the time. And indeed, his fatigue was starting to show. In the first two seasons he contributed 48 scripts, or 73% of the show's total output. He contributed only 56% of this season. Unfortunately, his exhaustion had also become apparent to many critics. "The show now seems to be feeding off itself," noted a Wikipedia:Variety review. "Twilight Zone seems to be running dry of inspiration." Despite his weariness Serling again managed to produce several teleplays that are widely regarded as classics, including It's a Good Life, To Serve Man and Five Characters in Search of an Exit. Additionally, the gap left by Serling's relatively small output was filled by a much greater output from a growing staff of guest writers. Scripts by Wikipedia:Montgomery Pittman and Wikipedia:Earl Hamner Jr. sought to contribute a rural charm in opposition to Matheson and Beaumont's growing cynicism, and Wikipedia:George Clayton Johnson submitted three teleplays that investigated such complex moral themes as old age, death and the nature of being number one. One episode proudly boasted: "Written by Wikipedia:Ray Bradbury". Despite these efforts response to the new season was lackluster relative to the accolade the production crew had become familiar with. It received two Emmy nominations (for cinematography and art design), but was awarded neither. It was again awarded the Wikipedia:Hugo Award for "Best Dramatic Presentation", making the program the only three-time Hugo-recipient. In Spring, Wikipedia:1961Twilight Zone was late in finding a sponsor for its fourth season and was replaced on CBS' fall schedule with a new hour-long situation comedy called Fair Exchange. In the atmosphere of confusion and panic that followed this apparent cancellation, producer Wikipedia:Buck Houghton left the series for a job with Wikipedia:Four Star Productions. Serling himself left to accept a teaching post at Wikipedia:Antioch College, his alma mater. Though the series would eventually be renewed, Serling's contributions as executive producer would greatly decrease in its final seasons. The Fourth Season (1963) In Wikipedia:1963 CBS contracted The Twilight Zone as a mid-season replacement for Fair Exchange, the very show that replaced it in the fall schedule. In order to fill Fair Exchange’s timeslot each episode had to be expanded to an hour-long, an idea which did not sit well with the production crew. “Ours is the perfect half-hour show,” said Serling just a few years earlier. “If we went to an hour, we’d have to fleshen our stories, soap opera style. Viewers could watch fifteen minutes without knowing whether they were in a Twilight Zone or Desilu Playhouse”. Wikipedia:Herbert Hirschman was hired to replace long-time producer Wikipedia:Buck Houghton. One of Hirschman's first decisions was to direct a new opening sequence, this one illustrating a door, eye, window and other objects suspended Magritte-like in space. At this he was successful, the new sequence became a pop-culture icon and the only such opening to be used on two consecutive seasons. His second task was to find and produce quality scripts. For this Twilight Zone once again turned to the reliable trio of Serling, Matheson and Beaumont… with mixed results. Serling’s input was limited this season: he still provided the lion’s-share of the teleplays, but as executive producer he was virtually absent and as host his artful narrations had to be shot back-to-back against a grey background during his infrequent trips to Wikipedia:Los Angeles. Beaumont’s input diminished significantly: suffering from the early onsets of Wikipedia:Alzheimer's disease, he frequently had to rely on Wikipedia:Jerry Sohl and other writer friends to ghostwrite for him. Additional scripts were commissioned from Wikipedia:Earl Hamner Jr. and Wikipedia:Reginald Rose to fill in the gap. With five episodes left in the season, Hirschman received an offer to work on a new Wikipedia:NBC series called Espionage and was replaced by Wikipedia:Bert Granet, who had previously produced “The Time Element”. Among Granet’s first assignments was On Thursday We leave For Home, the most celebrated entry of the season. Despite this and a handful of other critical successes, the new hour-long Twilight Zone was ill-received. Awards were limited to an Emmy nomination for cinematography and another for the Wikipedia:Hugo Award, neither of which it won. Ratings and reviews were generally unfavorable, and CBS’ fall schedule promised a return to the familiar half-hour format. The Fifth Season (1963-1964) A return to the half-hour format did not necessarily mean a return to form, as in its final season The Twilight Zone became increasingly reliant on gimmickry to compensate for a percieved decline in substance. The diminishing artistic credibility of the series was due primarily to the growing exhaustion of its chief contributor and creative originator, Wikipedia:Rod Serling. “Toward the end,” Serling later recalled, “I was writing so much the I felt I had begun to lose my perspective on what was good and what was bad.” His fatigue was not without cause; at the end of this season Serling had contributed a staggering 92 scripts in five short years. So while 19 year-old Wikipedia:UCLA astrophysics major Virginia Trimble toured the country as “Miss Twilight Zone,” the production crew tried desperately to reclaim the show’s fading prestige. This proved to be no easy task. Beaumont was now out of the picture entirely, contributing scripts only through the ghostwriters Wikipedia:Jerry Sohl and Wikipedia:John Tomerlin, and after producing only thirteen episodes Wikipedia:Bert Granet left and was replaced by Wikipedia:William Froug, with whom Serling had worked on Wikipedia:Playhouse 90. Froug made a number of unpopular decisions, first by shelving several scripts purchased under Granet’s term (including Matheson’s “The Doll”, which would be nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award when finally produced in Wikipedia:1986 on Amazing Stories) and replacing them with teleplays by newcomers like Wikipedia:Anthony Wilson, Wikipedia:Bernard C. Schoenfeld and even Froug’s own secretary A. T. Strassfield… people who often had no experience in science-fiction and little-to-no experience in writing for television. Secondly, Froug alienated Wikipedia:George Clayton Johnson when he hired Wikipedia:Richard deRoy to completely rewrite Johnson’s teleplay “Tick of Time”, eventually produced as Ninety Years Without Slumbering. “It makes the plot trivial,” complained Johnson of the resulting script. “Tick of Time” would be Johnson’s final submission to The Twilight Zone. Even under these conditions, several episodes were produced that would be remembered long after Twilight Zone’s cancellation, including Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, A Kind of a Stopwatch and Living Doll. This season received no Emmy recognition, but did not go entirely unrewarded. Episode number 142, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge –in actuality a French-produced short film that Froug syndicated as a Twilight Zone in order to keep the show under budget- received the Wikipedia:Academy Award for best short film, making Twilight Zone the only television show in history to win both an Emmy and an Oscar. In late Wikipedia:January, Wikipedia:1964 CBS announced Twilight Zone's cancellation. "For one reason or other, Jim Aubrey decided he was sick of the show," explained Froug. "He claimed that it was too far over budget and that the ratings weren't good enough." Serling countered by telling the Wikipedia:Daily Variety that he had "decided to cancel the network." Wikipedia:ABC showed interest in bringing the show over to their network under the new name Witches, Warlocks and Werewolves, but Serling wasn't impressed. "network executives seem to prefer weekly ghouls, and we have what appears to be a considerable difference in opinion. I don't mind my show being supernatural, but I don't want to be booked into a graveyard every week." Shortly afterwards Serling would sell his 40% share in The Twilight Zone to CBS, leaving the show and indeed all projects involving the supernatural behind him until Wikipedia:1969 and the debut of Wikipedia:Night Gallery. First Revival (1985-1988) frame|Opening for the [[Wikipedia:1985 Twilight Zone.]] It was Serling's decision to sell his share of the series that would eventually allow for a Twilight Zone revival. As an in-house production, Wikipedia:CBS stood to earn more money producing The Twilight Zone than it could by purchasing a new series produced by an outside company. Even so, the network was slow to consider a revival, shooting down offers from the original production team of Wikipedia:Rod Serling and Wikipedia:Buck Houghton and later from American film-maker Wikipedia:Francis Ford Coppola. Their hesitation stemmed from concerns familiar to the original series: Twilight Zone had never been the break-away hit CBS wanted, why should they expect it to do better in a second run? The answers to this question began to surface in the early eighties as a new generation of writers and directors emerged from the very teenagers who formed the core of Twilight Zone's original audience. First came The Twilight Zone Companion by Marc Scott Zicree, an in-depth look into the history of the series that won critical accolade, a Wikipedia:1983 nomination for the American Book Award and a place on best-seller lists across the nation. Also encouraging were the new numbers from Nielsen and the box office alike. "We were looking at the success of the series in syndication and the enormous popularity of the Wikipedia:Steven Spielberg films," said CBS program chief Harvey Shepard. "Many of them as [[Wikipedia:E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial|E.T.] or Poltergeist] deal with elements of the show. Perhaps the public is ready for it again." Despite lukewarm response to Wikipedia:Twilight Zone: The Movie, Spielberg's theatrical homage to the original series, CBS gave the project a greenlight in Wikipedia:1984 under the supervision of Wikipedia:Carla Singer, then Vice President of Drama Development. "Twilight Zone was a series I always liked as a kid," said Singer, "...and at that point it sounded like an interesting challenge for me personally." These sentiments were seconded by a number of young filmmakers eager to make their mark on a series which had proved influential to their life and work -people like writers Wikipedia:Harlan Ellison, Wikipedia:J. Michael Straczynski, Wikipedia:George R. R. Martin and Wikipedia:Rockne S. O'Bannon and directors Wikipedia:Wes Craven and Wikipedia:William Friedkin. Casts featured such stars as Wikipedia:Bruce Willis, Wikipedia:Morgan Freeman, Wikipedia:Martin Landau, Wikipedia:Jonathan Frakes and Wikipedia:Fred Savage. New theme music was composed by Wikipedia:Jerry Garcia and performed by Wikipedia:The Grateful Dead. Filling in for Serling as narrator and host was Wikipedia:Charles Aidman, himself the star of two classic Twilight Zone episodes. First Season (1985-1986) The New Twilight Zone debuted the night of Wikipedia:September 27, Wikipedia:1985 to a generally warm reception: it would win its Friday-night time slot four of its first five weeks. Episodes featured adaptations of stories by Wikipedia:Greg Bear, Wikipedia:Ray Bradbury, Wikipedia:Arthur C. Clarke, Wikipedia:Harlan Ellison and Wikipedia:Stephen King. A new batch of scripts was supplemented with remakes of classic Twilight Zones like Dead Man’s Shoes and Wikipedia:Night of the Meek. Though the production crew was convinced that they were making all of the right decisions, ratings began to slide as the novelty of the show wore off. “You have not known humiliation until you have been beaten by Webster and Wikipedia:Mr. Belvedere,” said executive story consultant Wikipedia:Alan Brennert. Then came “Nackles”. That the show’s producers had ever managed to hire Wikipedia:Harlan Ellison was considered by many to be nothing short of miraculous; Ellison was an extremely vocal critic of Wikipedia:television who had already published two collection of essays on the subject “concluding that to work in television is akin to putting in time in the Egyptian House of the Dead.” These feelings surfaced once again when the script he submitted for ‘’Twilight Zone’s’’ Wikipedia:Christmas special –an adaptation of Wikipedia:Donald Westlake’s story “Nackles”, in which a bigot frightens minority children with stories of a malicious anti-Wikipedia:Santa Claus- was rejected by CBS’ West Coast Program Practices. Halting the show in mid-production (Ellison was already scheduled to make his directorial debut) cost the program between $150,000 to $300,000… and Ellison’s services as a creative consultant. “Their suggestions were vile, infamous!” Ellison recalled of his aborted attempts to change the network’s mind. Rod Serling's Lost Classics A TV movie, Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics, aired in Wikipedia:1994, was narrated by Wikipedia:James Earl Jones, and was a compilation based on two unused Twilight Zone scripts. Second Revival (2002-2003) frame|Opening for the [[Wikipedia:2002 Twilight Zone.]] In Wikipedia:2002 a second revival was attempted by Wikipedia:UPN, with narration provided by Wikipedia:Forest Whitaker. It was cancelled after only one season. Notable facts the original series title "the twilight zone" was translated to french "La quatrième dimension" (the fourth dimension). the first revival series (1985-88) to " La cinquieme dimension" (the fifth dimension), and was aired on french TV channel "la Cinq" (the five). the second revival series (2002) to "La treizieme dimension" (the thirteenth dimension), and was aired on french cable channel "13ème rue" (13th street). Revivals in other media Radio revival In 2002, the Twilight Zone was revived as a nationally syndicated radio drama. Many of the stories were based on Rod Serling's original scripts and were slightly expanded and updated to reflect contemporary technology and trends (e.g., the mention of "Wikipedia:cell phones" and "Wikipedia:CD-ROMs" which, of course, weren't around when the television show aired in the 1960s). Taking Serling's role as narrator was Wikipedia:Stacy Keach. A different Hollywood actor and actress, such as Wikipedia:Blair Underwood and Wikipedia:James Caviezel, took the lead role in each radio drama. The radio series was produced by the Falcon Picture Group and scripts from the original Twilight Zone were adapted by Dennis Etchison (one episode by Chas Holloway). Oddly, the Wikipedia:compact disc and Wikipedia:cassette tape versions of the radio dramas contained several advertisements, some in the form of direct pitches and others as humorous skits. Its main sponsor was the Wikipedia:Hollywood Celebrity Diet. In Britain it has been heard on the digital channel Wikipedia:BBC 7. Twilight Zone Literature Numerous novelizations were published based upon episodes of Twilight Zone, as were several volumes of original short stories published under the Twilight Zone brand and edited by Rod Serling himself. book list to follow Wikipedia:Gold Key Comics published a long-running Twilight Zone comic that featured the likeness of Serling introducing both original stories and occasional adaptations of episodes. The comic outlived the television series by nearly 20 years and Serling by nearly a decade. Cultural References Wikipedia:The Simpsons Halloween episodes usually have one segment which spoofs a classic Twilight Zone episode. *Episodes spoofed **To Serve Man **Nightmare at 20,000 feet **It's a Good Life **Living Doll See also * Grateful Dead, performers and writers of the theme tune for a 1980s version of the series Progression (although possibly devolution) : The Twilight Zone > Night Gallery > Kolchak, the Night Stalker > X-Files Category:1950s American science fiction television series Category:1960s American science fiction television series Category:Science fiction television series Category:1960s science fiction Category:1950s science fiction Category:1960s in science fiction Category:1950s in science fiction Category:1960s in television Category:1950s in television Category:American anthology television series Category:American horror fiction television series Category:American mystery television series Category:American television series revived after cancellation Category:Black-and-white television programs Category:Dell Comics titles Category:English-language television programs Category:Gold Key Comics titles Category:Suspense television series Category:Television franchises Category:Television programs adapted into comics Category:Television programs adapted into films Category:Television programs adapted into novels Category:Television programs adapted into plays Category:Television programs adapted into radio programs Category:Television programs adapted into video games Category:Television series by 20th Century Fox Television Category:Television series by CBS Television Studios Category:Television series by MGM Television Category:The Twilight Zone